The Present and the Past (21 page)

‘We all have to make our sacrifice for the master, sir. And it seems to bind us together. In a way it is the meaning of the house.'

When Flavia returned late in the day, Ainger was waiting in the. hall.

‘I am both glad and sorry to see you, ma'am. I hope we have
done right. We have had our trouble again, and have had to use our own judgement. It could not have been foreseen.'

‘What is the matter?'

‘It is the same thing again, ma'am. The master was found as before. I happened to look in on him. It is a good thing the instinct prompted me. I don't know if the coming event cast its shadow before.'

‘There was some kind of shadow. It has followed me all day. I ought to have stayed at home. What is the truth?'

‘Simply the same as previously, ma'am. Or I trust we can say it is. We thought it best to leave him, as the doctor found nothing to do. But as the hours passed and there was no change, I took it upon myself to send for him. He should be here at any moment. I did riot tell Mr Clare for fear of alarming him. Yes, ma'am, on the sofa, as before.'

Flavia was standing by Cassius, as his father had stood. She turned to Ainger at once.

‘You are not right that there has been no change. There have been more than one. When did the last one come?'

‘I admit I am alarmed myself, ma'am.'

‘It is useless for me to say that the doctor should have come at once.'

‘It may partake of wisdom after the event, ma'am.'

‘It is wisdom nevertheless,' said Flavia, turning again to her husband.

The minutes passed in silence. There was nothing to do but live through them. Ainger waited at the door for the doctor, and they hastened to the library. Mr Clare entered with them, summoned by the sounds.

The silence, held and grew. The doctor bent over Cassius. Ainger moved to his hand, obeyed his hurried word. Some necessary things were done, and he turned and faced the wife and father.

‘It is worse this time,' said Mr Clare. ‘Has he taken more than before?'

‘He has taken nothing. This is a different thing. It is a sudden illness. It is an affection of the heart not unusual in middle-aged men. If stimulants had been given in time, it might have been
different. I can say it would have been. I should have been sent for at once, as, if you had known, you would have sent for me.'

‘But how could we know? How could we suspect this second thing? It had all the appearance of the first.'

‘You could not know. You are not to blame. You thought and did what was natural.'

‘And now is there any hope?'

The doctor did not answer, and Mr Clare turned to his son.

‘Poor boy, poor boy!' he said.

‘Can nothing be done?' said Flavia.

The doctor looked at the sick man, and Flavia followed his eyes. Nothing could be done but stand by Cassius, feeling there might be comfort in their presence, knowing there was none; nothing but watch the shortening breath, and feel their own stop, as a sudden deep sigh preceded a silence.

There was a faint stir as it came. The doctor bent over the couch. The wife and father remained with their eyes on it until they found they were alone. Voices were heard outside and seemed to liberate their own.

‘I could not know, my dear. How could anyone know? This takes more of my life than yours.'

‘What kind of a life did Cassius have?' said Flavia, with a cry in her tones. ‘Did he find it worth while? Did it hold as much as other men's? Did he feel that it did? Did he ever tell you how he saw it?'

‘It is no good to wish it different. It would be to wish him different, and this is not the time.'

‘I cannot help wishing it. It would have been better for him. I wish he had been happier. I wish he had had more. I wish I had given it to him. I had the opportunity day by day. I had it only a few hours ago, and to the end of my life I shall wish it.'

‘I hardly do so. I gave him what I had to give. And I do not need to talk of the end of my life. It is at its end. My son and I will be together, even if in emptiness.'

‘It is hard to think Cassius does not exist, harder than to think it of other men. It seems that he would be angry about it, that it ought not to have happened to him.'

‘Do we feel it should happen to any of us? Do our reason and
our feeling work together? How should they do so? We do not welcome the truth.'

‘We cannot know what it is.'

‘We cannot prove that we know it. We may cling to that.'

‘How good a wife do you think I was to him?'

‘As good as any woman could have been. No one was the wife for Cassius. It was easier to be his father.'

‘What a difficult life! And yet why need it have been? He seemed to have the nature of a child and the feelings of a man. I see him like that suddenly, and feel I should always have done so.'

‘There is some truth in it, my dear. I said that my part was the easier.'.

‘So I shall live without Cassius,'

‘And I shall die without him. And I did not look to do that. I have thought of his living without me. He is more fortunate than I am, or I like to think so.'

Ainger returned to the room and went up to Mr Clare.

‘May I advisé you to accompany us, ma'am?' he said, as he led him to the door. ‘It would have been the master's wish. That is what remains to us.'

They followed Ainger to the drawing-room, and saw that he was serving them with a sense of fulfilling his master's directions. It occurred to them both to wonder what these would have been.

‘So you and I will be here together,' said Flavia to her father-in-law. ‘And when you die, I shall be here alone. I shall be alone with the children. I shall deal with them alone. Cassius would have said I should have Catherine, but I shall not have her. It will be a stretch of emptiness. I do not feel I can face it.'

‘We are able for what we must. If our strength fails, it brings our solution. And yours will take you on. I do not say you are fortunate. You will find a barren path and you will follow it.'

‘Would Cassius be glad to be missed so much?'

Mr Clare was silent, a faint smile on his lips.

‘I have no wish to see Catherine,' said Flavia. ‘I feel it was a mistake that I ever saw her.'

‘It was never your wish. It was thrust on you. You did your
best with it, and it grew beyond you. It had to do that or fail, though at the time we did not see it. Cassius asked too much, and he got nothing. You had to give too much, and the reaction came. It was a living and growing thing.'

‘I shall blame myself all my life. I feel it is the one thing I shall do.'

‘Less with every month, and soon with every day and hour.'

‘I do not mean only for Catherine. I know that demand was made on me there. It was all I could do to meet it. I mean for my life with Cassius, for most of those nine years. I knew he wanted flattery. I could have given it to him. Why cannot we serve each other? Why could I not meet his need? I knew he wanted too much sympathy, and I gave too little. I had my own standard and observed it as if it were absolute. And it was only mine. Cassius was alone.'

‘No, I was with him. I feel I can say it. It is my drop of comfort, and I need not do without it. He was less alone than you were. You can feel that you bore the most. And if he came back to life, he would be the same. You would find the same trouble, meet the same failure. That means that you did not fail. And you did not leave him, as the other woman did. And he did not deal with you as he did with her. That is your success.'

‘I wish I had had a real one. But I can only have what is mine. And I hardly understand myself. My sympathy with Catherine is gone. I see her as another woman.'

‘I never saw her as she saw herself. It was perhaps your mistake that you did so. We should see people through our own eyes, if we keep them clear. I saw my son through mine, and loved him for himself and showed it. I have that to carry with me.'

‘You are the fortunate one of us, or rather you are the best.'

‘I have been the best to Cassius. I will take what is mine. But I knew him as a child, and saw the child in him. That was my help.'

They fell into silence, and Ainger, who had stood with bent head while they spoke, noiselessly left the room.

He went to the kitchen without much thought of himself and sat down in his place. The others looked at him in some awe before his experience.

‘Well, it is over, Mrs Frost, and I feel my life is over with it. When the old gentleman is gone, I shall have nothing. It may be a mistake to be knit so close, but it comes about in spite of us. An obscure life holds its troubles.'

‘Is the mistress prostrate?' said Kate, as though this might be assumed.

‘Her head is upright, Kate, and the old gentleman is the same. Other things about them are not to be passed on.'

‘Shan't we ever see the master again?' said Simon.

‘No, my boy,' said Ainger, with a note of full acceptance of what he said. ‘If you failed towards him, it is too late to rectify it now.'

‘And I am not an advocate for feminine rule,' said Kate.

‘It is the man's part,' said Ainger. ‘He is the natural head. And I make no implication.'

‘No, you managed without one,' said Mrs Frost.

‘I meant nothing adverse,' said Ainger.

‘I do not exalt the female sex,' said Kate.

‘We may do so, Kate, within its sphere.'

‘That first business was” on a woman's level,' said Halliday.

‘Halliday, the master is dead,' said Ainger, perhaps taking Kate's view.

‘And the others' foolishness of not sending for the doctor!' said Halliday to Kate. ‘Taking matters into their own hands!'

‘You can say it to my face, Halliday,' said Ainger. ‘Not turn aside and say it to a woman. It is a thing I shall carry with me.'

‘It will accompany you to the grave,' said Kate, in sad agreement.

‘I shall suffer for it, though I am innocent. It is the hardest kind of trouble.'

‘Has the mistress uttered any word of reproach?'

‘If she had, I would have heard it in silence. But she moves in her sphere. Such things would not emerge.'

‘You can say it to my face,' said Halliday.

Madge moved her hand across her eyes.

‘Ah, Madge, that is how I feel,' said Ainger. ‘But I have to regard my sex.'

‘Let yourself go, Mr Ainger,' said Kate, in sympathy.

Ainger shook his head with a smile.

‘There may be courage under an aspect,' said Kate.

‘It can be said of Mr Clare,' said Ainger. ‘There is an instance of a broken heart, if you want one.'

‘I am not sure that I do,' said Mrs Frost.

‘And he will not be with us much longer,' said Kate.

‘He and I have followed the fortunes of the house,' said Ainger. ‘We have stood, as it were, outside. The master and I stand together within it.'

‘You should use the past tense,' said Kate.

‘So I should; so I must by degrees. It comes hard to my tongue to use the word, “was”, of the master.'

‘We know he would not return, if he could.'

‘We may know it, Kate, with our heads. In my heart I shall always feel that he would revisit the old haunts, if he could.'

‘Was he good enough to go where it is better than here?' said Simon.

‘It is not for you to inquire after those above you,' said Ainger.

‘And now so much above,' said Mrs Frost.

‘Mrs Frost, I should not have instanced it as a case for pleasantry. I wonder at its striking you in that light.'

‘We cannot have only heaviness,' said Kate.

‘There is nothing else for me,' said Ainger. ‘For me it is one of the passages. I go alone through it, and would not include others. I have had the gain and accept the loss. We pay the price.'

‘Of every happiness,' said Kate. ‘Perhaps still waters are best.'

‘The master was not very old,' said Madge.

‘Fifty-two summers,' said Ainger. ‘It was his weakness to pass for less, or we will say his whim. But for me the veil was lifted.'

‘To me he looked his age,' said Kate.

‘His face carried the ravages of his experience. And I do not share his reluctance. Forty is my age, and as forty I stand before you. It is the right age for a man. But this will take me forward. Middle age is in sight.'

‘I am sixty-three and not troubled by it,' said Halliday.

‘Seven years from the span,' said Kate.

‘And not troubled by that!' said Halliday.

‘That is what I mean,' said Mrs Frost. ‘And it is what the master meant.'

‘Mrs Frost, had you no feeling for the master?' said Ainger.

‘I had as much as he had for me.'

‘He estimated your skill in your line, and indeed gave voice to it. He was not conversant with your life in its other aspects.'

‘He did not know it had any.'

‘Now, Mrs Frost, how could he?'

‘He could not, as it had none.'

‘Now, Mrs Frost, you cannot expect us to believe that.'

‘I daresay the master would have believed it, if he had thought about me.'

‘Now how often did you think about him, apart from matters in your sphere? And of those he spoke in commendation. And I lost no time in conveying it to you.'

‘We have to be thankful for small mercies,' said Madge.

‘I am not,' said Mrs Frost. ‘They are too small.'

‘Mrs Frost preserves her note,' said Kate.

‘I did not suspect her of principles of equality,' said Ainger.

‘There is the order of, things,' said Kate.

‘I used to wish to advance,' said Ainger. ‘And it may raise its head. For the moment I find it enough to have served.'

‘I am glad your sorrow is to be short-lived,' said Mrs Frost.

‘Mrs Frost, you fail to do Mr Ainger justice,' said Kate.